Pac-12 football ratings: Arizona fires Mike Stoops

This time last year, what kind of odds could you have gotten on Erickson outlasting Stoops? It can change in a hurry.

Thoughts on the news:

*** The decision to fire a football coach is momentous, not only for the football program itself but the entire athletic department.

My sense is that Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne had been mulling Stoops’ future for weeks, if not longer, and the Oregon State game was simply the final straw.

Byrne watched an ill-prepared team fall behind 27-6 against an opponent it should have gone toe-to-toe with … he watched more special teams blunders … he watched some mystifying playcalling (Keola Antolin up the middle on the goalline? Really?) … and Byrne finally had enough.

Yes, the Wildcats had a brutal schedule in late 2010 and early 2011, but they kept getting their butts kicked: by 23 points to Oklahoma State, 27 to Stanford, 25 to Oregon.

Even the USC game wasn’t as close as the final score indicated: Arizona was down 34-12 midway through the third quarter.

(If Stoops had the program on steady ground, then at some point along the way the Wildcats would have either beaten one of the ranked opponents or been competitive for 60 minutes.)

Then came the 27-6 first half against OSU, and that was it.

*** Despite the gloom-and-doom from Tucson, the Wildcats have the talent and the schedule to make something of their season.

They need five wins for a bowl berth and have UCLA (home), Utah (home), Colorado (road) and Louisiana-Lafayette (home).

Win those four, and they need to steal one in Seattle or Tempe — hardly an impossible task.

Don’t get me wrong: This isn’t an 8-4/9-3 team. (The lines are awful.) Whether Stoops lost the lockerroom or not, I don’t know. But Arizona is better than it has played.

*** Don’t underestimate the role Stoops’ sideline antics played in his dismissal.

The Arizona administration was embarrassed by his actions — as were influential constituents — and school officials kept telling Stoops to clean up his act. He didn’t (or couldn’t).

Also not to be underestimated: That Stoops was not hired by Byrne and that Stoops was never a part of the Tucson community.

Add it all up, and he had zero support to fall back on when things got rough.

*** Why fire him now?

Above and beyond the Oregon State loss, the Wildcats have a bye week to give everyone involved in the football program a chance to absorb the news and adjust to new roles.

I have to think the prospect of 25,000 empty seats in Arizona Stadium for the Oct. 20 ESPN telecast (vs. UCLA) was a consideration, as well.

The school had to do something to drive away the negativity and sell tickets for that game — even if the only reason is to see if anything’s different under interim coach Tim Kish.

*** Byrne’s a sharp, ambitious guy who has hired a head coach in the SEC (Dan Mullen at Mississippi State). He understands how the firing and hiring games are played, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he has thought everything through.

Yes, Byrne has a relationship with Chris Petersen dating back to their days at Oregon, but Petersen has a terrific situation in Boise and has turned down many first-rate AQ confrence jobs in the past.

Why jump from a school that has played in two BCS games in the past five years to a program that has never won its conference title?

I’ll never say never. Maybe Tucson’s livability factor is to his liking … Maybe he views the Pac-12 South as there for the taking with USC entering scholarship hell … But it seems unlikely.

(And shouldn’t the failure of Dan Hawkins at Colorado — and Dirk Koetter at ASU, to a slightly lesser extent — make AQ conference athletic directors pause for a nanosecond before they open the vault for Petersen?

(Heck, look at Kyle Wittingham, who’s a quality coach by any measure. He won 9+ games four years in a row at Utah … and then along came the Pac-12.

(One thing people forget: The AQ leagues don’t only have better players. They have better coaches, too.)

*** Byrne also has known Mike Bellotti for years (through Oregon). Bellotti is interested in getting back into coaching, and Oregon and Arizona are comparable programs in many respects: college towns where the bulk of your recruiting is out of state.

The Wildcats can’t match Oregon’s facilities, but the new football complex in the north end zone of Arizona Stadium (groundbreaking is scheduled for January) makes the job much more attractive.

Whether he hires a former head coach, sitting head coach or a career assistant, Byrne will undoubtedly look for the best fit for Arizona football and Tucson.

In my opinion, Mike Leach is not the right fit. Not close.

*** Arizona should absolutely, positively hire a coach whose background is offense, and even better would be a coach who played quarterback or has worked closely with quarterbacks.

Other than Pete Carroll, who had inherent recruiting advantages at USC, the most successful coaches in the conference over the past 10-15 years have all been from the offensive side.

You have to go back to Oregon’s Rich Brooks and Arizona’s Dick Tomey to find defensive coaches who achieved some level of sustained success, and it’s a different game now.

(Arizona fans might say, “Stoops was a defensive-minded coach, and he won.” To which I’d respond: He was over .500 in league play twice in eight years. That’s not winning consistently.)

*** And what about the money?

Washington raised the Pac-12 bar last winter by giving Steve Sarkisian a $2.55-per-year extension last season … and all he did was win seven games.

For points of reference: That’s about $1.5 million more than Stoops earned and a few hundred thousand more than Sean Miller makes. (The Wildcats also reportedly owe Stoops a $1.4 million buyout.)

Like all Pac-12 schools, Arizona will receive $15-16 million in Year One of the league’s media deal with ESPN and Fox, which kicks in next summer.

I don’t know how much of the TV revenue has been earmarked for other needs (i.e., facilities and/or operations).

But I cannot believe that Byrne would plunge into a coaching search unless he was confident the Wildcats could pay market rate to get the coach he wants.

2. Oregon (4-1, 2-1)Last week: 2Result: Beat Cal 43-15Next up: vs. Arizona StateComment: If Ducks get through ASU without LMJ, they’ll have two cupcakes (Colo and WSU) before his services would be paramount.

3. Arizona State (5-1, 3-0)Last week: 3Result: Won at Utah 35-14Next up: at OregonComment: Plenty on the line this week in Eugene, possibly including host team for Pac-12 title game. Remember: ASU does not play Stanford or Washington.

4. Washington (4-1, 2-0)Last week: 4Result: ByeNext up: vs. ColoradoComment: With bye and the Buffs, Huskies essentially have three weeks to get healthy, ready and prepped for Stanford on 10/22.

6. VacantComment: Nobody worthy. We’ll know more after ASU-Oregon and Stanford-Washington (next week), but the league appears to have three tiers: 1) Stanford and Oregon, 2) ASU, UW and USC and 3) everyone else.

7. UCLA (3-3, 2-1)Last week: 10Result: Beat Washington State 28-25Next up: Bye, then at ArizonaComment: Tells you something about state of league’s bottom half when a 3-pt home win over WSU warrants a 3-spot jump in ratings … but who else for No. 7?

12. Arizona (1-5, 0-4)Last week: 9Result: Lost at Oregon State 37-27Next up: Bye, then UCLAComment: Was only 50 weeks ago that Cats were 7-1 and ranked 15th, albeit against a soft early-season schedule.

13. Colorado (1-5, 0-2)Last week: 11Result: Lost at Stanford 48-7Next up: at WashingtonComment: Injuries and talent-shy roster making Jon Embree’s rookie season is the antithesis of what Stanford’s David Shaw is experiencing.